Nightwing, Vol. 1: Leaping into the Light
by
Tom Taylor (writer), Bruno Redondo (Illustrator), Rick Leonardi (Illustrator), Neil Edwards (Illustrator), Adriano Lucas (Illustrator), Scott Hanna (Illustrator), Andy Lanning (Illustrator), Wes Abbott (Letterer)
Dick Grayson is a beloved and fan-favourite character – probably the most popular Robin ever and as Nightwing, he’s much the same. Now after many twists and turns and directional swerves (including becoming a sort of spy, getting shot in the head, losing memory and changing his name from Dick to Rick, because why not… okay then…), he is back to being the kind-hearted and bold Hero that fans love – or at least that’s the goal so does it work? Let’s find out!
This series is another feather in the cap of writer Tom Taylor in my view. Showing his surprising and innate feel for DC comics characters, Taylor takes Dick in a whole new direction while keeping to Nightwings roots.
By that I mean that we find ourselves back full-time in Bludhaven where Nightwing made his home after going solo, the place most associated with him, and while he is still fighting crime and swinging over the streets and alleys, the story is also a bold new direction for the Dick Grayson part of him.
Our hero is back in town and he is faced with some jarring changes to his life and world:
Firstly, Dick is dealing with the death of Alfred, the other father-figure in his life besides Bruce, the more tender and warm one whose loss is being felt resoundingly through the whole Bat-family. To top it all off, Alfred has over his life accrued a fortune of his own and left it all to Dick – who now is overwhelmed by the loss as well as gratitude and also confusion and fear about what to do with his newfound independant wealth.
Secondly, Nightwing is faced with multiple looming threat. First among them is the gangster known as Blockbuster whom he has fought before and is now a major power-player in the city, then there’s the new psychotic serial killer Heartless who lives up to his name and is literally ripping out peoples’ hearts and last but not least is the mysterious Melinda Zucco who is the daughter of the late Tony Zucco, a.k.a, the gangster responsible for the death of The Flying Graysons – only now she’s just been elected Mayor of Bludhaven.
And so we find our brave but troubled hero trying to deal with all the above and find a new way to be a Hero, something that he can do that others cannot perhaps. Should he stay in the shadows as his mentor has done or should he try something else? Will it be worth the risk and what will be the fallout on him and his loved ones?
Thankfully, he’s not alone and has friends like the Titans and Oracle/Batgirl/Barbara Gordon in his corner. Oh and along the way he adopts a 3-legged pup who was named in an online contest of sorts by the fans.
This series has been a stand-out amongst DC’s mainstream which I have felt disinterested in for some time now, not reading most of them with any regularity because, frankly they were boring or just not-fun.
But all in all, I must say that this has been not just a light in the darkness that is DC, but has been a major high-point for Nightwing himself. The art is striking and all the artists, Redondo, Leonardi, all of them, have truly elevated the already strong story with amazing panels and whole pages – there are so many wonderfully crafted pages with flowing and dynamic art that never feels rushed and always flows gracefully panel to panel and page to page – some pages are literally (as in the Issue #6 cover) just wonderful flows of Nightwing doing things.
It’s almost like the artists and writer all have such a wonderful sense of Nightwing that they’ve translated his acrobatic flow as fans imagine it and added a feel of the same to the whole story. In addition, I give props to the story by Taylor that at one level goes back to the concept that while Batman and Robin are truly a dynamic duo, Batman is a creature of the night and night or day, Robin was always the bright spark that brought life to everything – it was what Dick did when he first took on the mantle and now he is finding that same spark in his Nightwing persona who had gotten a bit dark and dreary over the years but is now finding a place in the light and learning to not be afraid to stand in it.
After years and years of not really giving a crap about any comic that starred Nightwing and being bored senseless by the last few years in particular of his terribly meandering solo revampings and such by the editorial direction over at DC, I am very glad to have this new series that was stellar in this first volume and gets better as it goes along – I’ll review later volumes as soon as I can!
If you’re a Nightwing/DickGrayson fan, I would highly, HIGHLY recommend this series.
One Happy Monk 
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